Hello and welcome to the work in progress thread of my fantasy adventure game Shavra

“This is not your world, outsider, you don’t belong here. You have proventhat you are not a spy, nor an assassin or in any other way relatedto…them. Yet this is not your body, these are not your lungs you are breathing our air with and not your heart beating in this chest. Its likely that you condemned the owner of this shell to death, if they didn’t already…harvest…him. I have known him, you see…we where friends for many decades.
You probably wonder where you are and it is likely not on your planet
nor in your dimension. This is the Symarian Empire, the most prosperous
trading nation on the planet Shavra. At least it used to be, in better
days slowly fading from our collective memory. You have come at a bad
time, outsider. The cataclysm has ruptured the integrity of this
continuum and we are approaching darkest night, metaphorically speaking,
of course. They say its darkest before the break of dawn yet I am
afraid our civilisation will not be here anymore when the first ray of the
rising sun touches the ground.
You are free to walk the halls of this sanctuary until the Synergy has
decided what to do with you, although make no illusions, outsider… you
will likely be sentenced to death. We cannot afford any unnecessary
risks or disturbances before the inevitable maelstrom to come but don’t
let this discourage you…
also, do not attempt to flee, the desert will kill you far slower than
any poison of ours. …but perhaps.. the bleak outlook has gotten the better of me.
Perhaps the Synergy will let you live to witness our demise…
perhaps your appearance here is more than mere coincidence though.
A younger, more idealistic version of me didn’t believe in coincidences.
Perhaps you have come to save us all. Wouldn’t that be a solemnly naive
point of view? Ha!
Either way, outsider, welcome to Shavra.”

“A young writer awakens incarnated in the clone-body of an extradimensional being. Surrounded by the wonders of an alien world he is also quickly facing the plight of a species in peril. What adventures will wait for him and will he ever get back home to earth?”

Shavra is an experimental 3D adventure game that is aimed to be a hybrid of several of my creative outlets. It shall bind game design, music, writing and painting into a single iron from which I’ll attempt to forge a playable game. English being my 4th language, you may find that the “writing” part is a lot less fleshed out. This can manifest in something extraordinary or entirely abysmal. This is less relevant to me. Unlike other projects on here, this game is being developed continuously without milestones or estimated release dates. The journey is the reward here and the lessons I can learn within. You are invited to take this journey with me, see and perhaps even play the results.

Really looking forward to seeing what you do with this bro', I think your style will be made to stand out in Reloaded.

I may do some more of of those twisted rock formations specifically for Reloaded use as they may come in handy for those who want to do sci-fi/fantasy games.

There are more than enough generic rocks around for now

If you remove Reloaded default terrain from render you will see a 400% framerate increase, removing water is marginal. So I would go with terrain entities if I were you, I am actually finding Reloaded terrain more and more useless to me for any kind of serious game design, it is just too much of a resource hog.

Even setting superflatterrain=1 which I assume is a simple quad plane won't help much, so it must be all those textures and a super hungry shader. As a tip NEVER build with superflatterrain as it sits at a different height from the regular and causes major issues with AI when built standalone. Particularly if you change your mind and set it to '0' again.

Using hide/show terrain only removes it from render and collision is still present so it can actually be used as an invisible blocking volume and you can also sculpt to suit your terrain entities for foliage placement etc, even remove collision from terrain entity and use the hidden default terrain for more perfect AI collision till the AI/Entity collision is fixed properly.....some things have a use even if not intended

Hey there community, my brethren in gameforging,insanity manifested in polygons and syntaxes!

I feel the need to update this thread before Lee releases the next Beta and I can start to get further into developing this game. So far I have been converting and creating a lot of base models for Shavra. I am an artist now, at least in an amateur sense. In november I will take part in a larger art-exhibition and to me, this is kind of the point where I evolve from being a guy who paints the occasional picture to being a guy who has shared those paintings with an audience after a few years of work and is thus an artist. This directly translates into Shavra* in a sense that the visual development of it takes place on a digital canvas that I share with all of you, people who have been following my projects that constantly failed, mostly due to the engine, I admit that, but also just as often due to my past incompetence. I don't have both excuses anymore so I try,( with the time I have to work on this, which isn't much per week, ) to bring you the best game I can make. I desire to craft a direct juxtaposition between my traditional and digital work. Sure, technically it won't be anything noteworsy in the eyes of other games but I hope that I can attract some attention with its style.

I guess this was just a rather long way of saying: Hey guys! I try to make a game that looks really good.

What I did after I imported all my rocks and boulders and terrains was... discovering that I had even more of these. Which I will look at in the future, regardless of that I proceeded with importing my foliage and creating aswell as rearranging architecture for Shavra*. I got some pretty impressive gothic/medieval architecture working. If I had decent lightmapping, I'd show you! ...but I don't so I arranged a little low-res teaser shot, simply because these things don't look good unlit.

You might notice the white-ish color of the architecture. This is because I instantly fell in love with reloaded's white desert terrain and chose to use it just as it is for Shavra*. It looks way more "extradimensional" and fits the style better than yellow sands. Now, as the resources the buildings in the games universe are crafted with would most likely be from the surrounding areas I had to adjust the color pallette to the terrain. The results look good, altough, if you remember my horror games from way back, it was not exactly easy to get used to working with "making things brighter". It was quite hard for me to get good results, to be honest
Whe are quite used to see dungeons and castles in dark, mosscovered and gritty stone colors. I hope that what I create here will look authentic in the end.

Initially, I intended to update this once all my foliage is converted and ready, but by then Lee would have likely already published the next beta, and then I'd have other things to share with you guys. Please, just take my word that I have tons of plants and some of them look really dang good in reloaded!
It comes natural to me to use a lot of plants in my levels. You wouldn't know, because it was ...well...less well working in classic.
I hope that the new lightmapping system will not bring back the old transparency, static/dynamic entitie problems though!

Shavra* will bring back my old nemesis. The courtyard! Why? Because I won't let it defeat me. I have introduced the courtyard in 2010 (!) then it looked like this. (Not my finest work of that year, I have done much better back then in old Relict times.) It eventually evolved into this. This was from my short-lived Unreal Engine 3 project. However, altough I kept promising the people that supported my work throughout the years that they will "soon" be able to walk around in it in a demo, I never delivered... and its just a scene I have to get in a released project, which is why it will be in Shavra*s Beta demo! Check out the new version, all modeled with dis- and then reassembled parts of a dexsoft pack:

The highest-poly wall has only around 3K polygons. I also managed to compress the textures down to 2MB. Altough I assume that reloaded will be decent performance wise...I don't know that it will so I just optimise aswell as I can without sacrificing visual quality and hope for the best. This is of course just the top part, the lower part will be added in editor later. The UDK version probably had 4 times the polycount as I just slammed in fully modeled props that disappear 80% in the wall and modeled all these windows in full 3d. ...I was just not yet competent in 3D modeling stuff.
I like the artistic windows of the building...actually I've spent quite some time retexturing it properly. ...and luckily it looks just fine in-engine aswell.

**Change-Log**

*Renaming Spyra into Shavra (this change will be made more apparent next week or so). Why? I noticed that every english speaking person would refer to the game as "Spie Rah" where I thought it would be pronounced "SpÃ¼ ra". (germanic) Its also really close to A) a popular series about a purple little dragon that I enjoyed on the PS1 B ) The name of the world in one of the later FF games. C) the name of a popular electronica musician. Shavra on the other hand is less used and I'm never going to make another bleak, post apocalyptic Shavra-shooter again. Most projects didn't run and the one I did release doesn't run that well on more modern OS. I'm doing well with doing my own thing and Spyra sounds too much like a dozen other "things" that already exist out there.

* Trying to get a sheep to work in reloaded -> introducing myself to the world of LUA script.

* Adjusting the colorpallette and resolution of the Legacy Pack Media.

* Changes in tone. You might have noticed that I added some horror elements and darker areas in the last update of Spyra-FPSCC. This was because a sense of danger and dread would carry a game that gets interrupted by a loadingscreen every 4 minutes. My horror games had a creepy atmosphere that masked lots of the technical shortcomings. I'm assuming that my levels will last a little longer in reloaded so I can drop that and get back to making Shavra a more peaceful adventure. The horror influence also called for darker levels (which where planned to be deserted in the concept of old Spyra but are now planned to be teaming with life in the new Shavra) because the old normalmapping shader had, even after constant tweaking, the tendency to make everything well lit look like plastic. it was dreadful to work with. (this was also the point where I quit making games for a solid few months )

Many of you, who are still around, have already commented on and supported this, and many more of my projects in the past. Its a joy to be part of this community and I thank you all for this. After all, a game no-one will play isn't worth making.
Whew! Long post, long day ahead, I'll get some rest! Comments are, as always greatly appreciated!

You might have noticed that I asked a moderator to rename the thread. Next will also be redesigning my webblog and this projects IndieDB profile so it gets proper exposure.

I've been tinkering very little on the project itself, I'm still waiting for more advanced betas to really get the ball rolling. What I have been doing was mostly importing rocks!

Lets rock!:

Shavra plays in a desert. A very bright and barren desert. A setting I have chosen because it is both mysterious and easy to do. Back in FPSC days, some terrain and a skybox would have sufficed, but now I have more possibilities.

I wanted to revert back to Relikts prehistoric swamp concept but have chosen to stay true to Shavras (in this case Spyras) original look.

The good thing is, that with managable effort I can have open, alien terrain the player gets to navigate occasionally. If I put in enough effort it actually feels like an open-world game. Like Morrowind for example.

The secret lies in setting borders in a way that the player does not immediately perceive them as borders or doesn't even want to go there.

But how do I design a desert that feels both authentic and is still interesting to explore. Real deserts feature only sand and the occasional rock, I thought... and then I started to go with rocks for now.

I have imported over 100 different rock models into reloaded...from pebbles to cliffs. It would make sense that the settlements are around rocky areas where there is shelter from Sandstorms... these I can create now. I have also learned from Skyrim that blending entities with the terrain makes for the best landscape look. I'm getting good results now but I can't say how it will perform once baked lightmapping is in. I have to thank rolfy here, as I use one of his textures for some and the color-palette of this texture for all of the rocks in Shavra.

Altough I generally optimise my game very well, I go with high resolutions for the terrain as it just elevates the overall feel of the game! Its one of the reasons why texture mods for older games focus a lot on the terrain. A blurry, dull terrain just kills the mood.

The amount of rocks I have allows me to create very diverse dungeons aswell. Altough classic dungeoncrawling will be more rare in Shavra.

Desert-themed fantasy often has architecture that is built in large sandstone formations. This would be a difficult task to pull off but I will try it anyway later in development!

A hint/little advice I'd like to give: If you remove the details from a building mesh and invert its vertices you will get the layout of the same buildings interior! You now can design within this new model.

**Change Log:**

* Imported large amount of assets.

The next update will likely focus more on architecture! Please leave a comment about what you think of this so far if you took the time to read this! Thank you

Quote: "I thought they were a bit Rolfy-ish. (that's a thing...right?)"

it is on these forums!

Quote: "I like the idea of having a 'Tip a Day'. Here is mine,

"Modelling and game design is fun and ridiculously addictive. Don't start""

I agree wholeheartedly! Its worse than good coffee

Quote: "FYI, I like your new avatar. Very sophisticated. "

Indeed! Means alot coming from a fine gentleman such as yourself!

Altough this isn't part of an update I'd like to show you a little something I dug up! On the old TGC store are some quite useful models that have been neglected and almost forgotten. I got this lady-in-armor on there for only a few points and had her lying around in my FPSC modelcollection. It used to be a blonde elven model. I removed her pointy ears, gave her a proper resoluted texture that doesn't waste an enormous amount of space (the original was...ridicoulus) and gave her a Shavran makeover. (greyish skin, violet glowing eyes.) Afterwards I only had to do some color-correction and now I have a very neat background character!

I noticed her because she actually came with her own set of animations! If there is one thing I won't allow to be in Shavra, its the FPSC Classic stock idle animation. Those who used to own classic know what I'm talking about So my tip of the day is: If you can adjust your models and know the basics of modeling, go dig in the old store! You might find some great stuff.

Thanks! Well... I am not entirely sure. I prefer my games to be in FPV. Preferably with a playerbody. Its more immersive and Shavra is kinda tailored to play like its "you" who is the character. 3rd person is simply tempting because I have a few awesomly animated chars in my collection .

Quote: "we want a demo wolf you are one of the golden gems of the tgc offspring, i am glad you have a project going, "

How to respond to such a massive compliment? Thanks a thousand! Altough I feel like I still have to prove my meddle with game guru... most of my achievments have been done with FPSC. Its just hard for me without proper indoor and lighting tools

Demo is gonna be a three part thing. It will have raptors and a ruined ancient city. Thats all I can say for now

Quote: "You have put a lot of work into your assets, and I am looking forward to playing."

Thanks colosso! Making the assets was quite a bit of work, even those I based off of packs I bought. I can't wait to present them in well lit scenes...one day

-Wolf

"When I contradict myself, I am telling the truth"
"absurdity has become necessity"

A little bird has tweeted me that we likely get major performance enhancements in the future and that would be most welcome as I play most of my work-in-progress maps with a framerate that makes them feel mostly like a slideshow. I have swapped my big-tower gaming rig with a laptop lately which has of course improved the feng-shui of my place a lot, however, I also have to deal with lag now which is..new to me.

That being said, I got started working on one of the 3 level demo maps. The entrance to the ruined city is already in a state that can be presented so here it is:

This is, of course, far from done. Developed is slow because there is little I can do without being able to light my scenes.

-Wolf

"When I contradict myself, I am telling the truth"
"absurdity has become necessity"

I have left this fall behind for a couple months (actually, almost a full year Where does the time go? ) and left Game Guru to improve for a while.
I have worked on Acythian at the time which is less demanding and more experimental in nature and learned a lot about modeling doing so
Now that it has, I feel that its a good time to resurface this thread. However, I'll be on the road for a couple of days now and will only respond sporadically, let it be known that I have started to work on a small demo, presenting what little I have done gameplay wise so far. This will however be in development for a while still.

I didn't produce many breathtaking screenshots so I'll show the lightmapping test shots because well...they use media I originally made for this anyway.
(All the assets have been licensed to TGC now and are part of the GG megapacks if you'd like to get them for yourself)
You won't find these scenes exactly like this in game, but very similar.

So yeah. This is back

-Wolf

"When I contradict myself, I am telling the truth"
"absurdity has become necessity"

Quote: "i can never achieve the oneness that you achieve, i have a lot to learn"

I disagree, I think your work blends very well and I know how hard it is to get things to blend in GG.

Quote: "Keep raising the bar higher, we all love challenges!

Did you combine baked statics with dynlights here?"

So do I. I try but its not easy in GG's current state.
And no, those are all static lights.

Quote: "Excellent Wolf! Really glad to see that you've gotten the hang of the GG lighting system!

The screenshots look awesome man!!"

Thanks Landman. I wouldn't say that I have the hang of it but its better than the results I had before. Glad you like the results

I have been working on a small demo, just to see what guru can do and where the results are not acceptable and so far... well, not as good as I hoped. No matter what I do, my little swamp island does not look as decent as I want it to and the performance is abysmal. Gameplay has not even been added or characters.
I had to modify my models heavily to make them blend.

I was playing a lot with the ambient settings but it does not yet feel right to me.

Feedback is very welcome!

-Wolf

"When I contradict myself, I am telling the truth"
"absurdity has become necessity"

yes you don't want to turn the ambient down to much because this is where everything on one side facing away from the sun light will look to dark which looks bad. but on the other hand turn down the ambient helps the surface light of the shade to come out more and give your scene a more realistic look and make everything stand out sharper. this what I hate about the light system in guru the fact that everything on the other side fall under ambient. it needs another surface light for the other side or a reflective shader so that the ambient does not have to play a part in the scene. yes may lose performance for such a thing but turning the shader is a performance lost anyway. you will pay for a lot of performance to get a scene this. guru have the graphic but need the performance to handle the shader on high.

The 3 pictures I like very much. This brilliance (summer evening, I love it). I always make everything a bit hazy because of the performance and the difficult shadow. Like some already written, the lighting engine is not the best. But how does that work with the interior lighting, the shadows are of a light? A shader or I have the wrong graphics card?

No progress to report, I just wanted to get back to all the feedback on here. I'm in the middle of updating my stuff, tying up loose ends and just getting all my old stuff out of the way and clean my harddrive out so I won't also have time to work on my games. There won't be an update for a little while then.

@Disturbing 13:

Quote: "Seriously Wolf, you make us all want to improve our work."

Thats great! To me, the fun in making games is all about the journey to have a level come to live (in 3D! Thats still a big deal to me in 2016) and then interact with it. Improving it is a big part and if I can make other people have fun doing that as well, all the better.

@JC LEON:

Quote: "wolf---wolf ---wolf --- OMG|||"

I take that as a compliment thx!

@MichaelX:

Quote: "yes you don't want to turn the ambient down to much because this is where everything on one side facing away from the sun light will look to dark which looks bad. but on the other hand turn down the ambient helps the surface light of the shade to come out more and give your scene a more realistic look and make everything stand out sharper. this what I hate about the light system in guru the fact that everything on the other side fall under ambient. it needs another surface light for the other side or a reflective shader so that the ambient does not have to play a part in the scene. yes may lose performance for such a thing but turning the shader is a performance lost anyway. you will pay for a lot of performance to get a scene this. guru have the graphic but need the performance to handle the shader on high."

Yes! There is a lot to be desired. Also notice how the rock entities in the terrain have pitch black shadows where the terrain does not react.
Another major flaw is that the default shaders on guns and enemies don't react to baked lights.

@Ertlov:

Quote: "Sometimes, I really hate you out of pure, greedy envy.

But then I kick my ass and tell me to get there, too"

Ha! Thanks!! Behooold my gloooory!
Ah come on, lets be real! What you have done in Guru so far looks just as good as any of my stuff so far. Especially the Antimony Prototype.

Also you are the one of us with the big retail releases...you hack fraud!

@Lafette

Quote: "Hi...

The 3 pictures I like very much. This brilliance (summer evening, I love it). I always make everything a bit hazy because of the performance and the difficult shadow. Like some already written, the lighting engine is not the best. But how does that work with the interior lighting, the shadows are of a light? A shader or I have the wrong graphics card?

As always, I hope you can this read"

Your english is fine!
Thank you very much!
I like your foggy style, it goes well with a shooter. Yes! Warm summer evening is the ambience I try to get across! I'm glad that works
The interior lighting is using the "build" feature (F3 drücken und statische Lichter platzieren. Wenn du die Lightmapwerte in der Setup.ini hochschraubst kriegst du bessere Effekte, genau wie beim ollen FPSC). The shadows are cast from the static lights, no shader.

...and now off to get some work done!

-Wolf

"When I contradict myself, I am telling the truth"
"absurdity has become necessity"

1. Boat on starting location, can be the shore or you can actually be on the boat
2. LUA script attached, that requires an action by the player, e.g. "Press E to row on"
3. Lua Script triggers a pre-recorded slow flight to the destination as video
4. An exact copy of the boat is at the destination
5. Lua script teleports you to the destination, you are on the boat seeing exactly what you saw at the end of the video

1. Boat on starting location, can be the shore or you can actually be on the boat
2. LUA script attached, that requires an action by the player, e.g. "Press E to row on"
3. Lua Script triggers a pre-recorded slow flight to the destination as video
4. An exact copy of the boat is at the destination
5. Lua script teleports you to the destination, you are on the boat seeing exactly what you saw at the end of the video"

...In my head it was seeing the boat in front of you with an animated character giving you a little exposition dialogue...but your version is probably the best way that I can do it...and so I will. Many thanks for the idea.

@Science Boy

Quote: "what can only be described as awesome and awesome with a hint of spot on especially the path leading up shot. Inspiring. "

Thank you! That is very encouraging as I am not yet that "at home" with outdoor leveldesign. I have been honing my skills working on Acythian but its still rather new ground to me. There is still a lot missing in those shots, but I'll get there.